One man’s take should never be a definitive verdict on an artistic endeavor, especially if you have even the slightest inclination towards serving up soup cans on a canvas yourself. The fact is, critical reads are a must in these day-late/dollar-short days, even when most blog-savvy 12-year olds know how to pirate the latest album, DVD or video game in 20 keystrokes or less.

Buying an album takes a little commitment in the 21st century and the logical choice seems to be Itunes, in fact the old star/mic rating system is sadly outdated. Your rating scale now amounts to, pirate, buy digitally or purchase this thing called a Compact Disc, they seem to sell them only at places called Best Buy, Barnes & Noble and Target, since the record store has gone the way of the dodo (two tears in a bucket for Fat Beats). Yes, there is a faction that remains true to physical product, something tangible, but barring an epic global turnaround, those with disposable income will soon be fossilized as well.

That ambling preamble aside, we’re talking about a gifted wordbender with sincere pedigree here, Skyzoo, (he of the incredible debut Cloud 9: The 3 Day High with 9th Wonder) sidekicked by an equally decorated producer Illmind, who has backdropped for both the underground (Akrobatik, El Da Sensei, Boot Camp Clik, etc.) and the overground (50 Cent, Eminem, LL Cool J). The bar set for the project, sound-unheard, is therefore high, and lofty expectations are often an unfair predecessor to a listening session. The leaks “Frisbees” and “Speakers On Blast” did nothing to lower said-bar and the packaging, both literal (complete with a fantastic artwork booklet) and figurative (superb features from Rhymefest, Buckshot, Styles P., Torae & Heltah Skeltah), point to a release worthy of at least your Itunes gift card.

The days of midnight Monday sales where you copped all the hot shit in one-stop shop style are sadly over. There was something of a fraternity there amongst hip-hoppers even if it was just a mutual snarl that said “aw shit, this fool likes the Cella Dwellas too…” There is an element within Live From The Tapedeck that puts us old-heads back there, sitting on a beat-up couch while the store-owners or DJs in the house spun the albums you were gonna cop anyway. The concepts, (I counted Do The Right Thing, Boondocks and even Frisbees) are nice, the features the same, the beats are textured and professional but this is not really rush-to-the-Walmart-Wednesday sale music. You can live with it in your IPod.

Special distinction goes to Illmind who crafts signature drum patterns and a future-synth stamp on a few cuts here, namely “Digital Analog” and “Frisbees.” Something of a tease if one was expecting a strict Tron-A-Thon. Illmind does do well to keep the compositions evolving though, such as a the heavy metal interlude on the album’s most intricate cut, “Krylon” (OK, “Langston’s Pen” is no slouch either), Sky’s color-coded verbal exercise.

The blueprint of a phenomenal album is fully in place (an economical 12 tracks, one of the better producers in the game Humphrey Bogart’ing the boards and features that make you want to forgo sequencing), but sadly nothing is new under the sun, dun. Even the most ardent hip-hop artist is himself a critic, it’s a culture predicated on pitted schools of thought. Oh, the guilt. Still, there is enough to redeem this effort to overlook that which it lacks. Just one aging head’s opinion.

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